On Friday we discussed that a win over Hibernian would likely be required if we were to maintain our spot at the top of the table, and so it proved. The normal anxiety of slipping two points off the pace is not evident among the support, perhaps because it is Hearts at the top of the pile. That relaxed tone might be justified this season, but will not last forever. Our visit to Tynecastle in four weeks is already looking pivotal.
Although Celtic dropped two points and became only the third side this season who failed to score against Hibs (14 games in), there was evident improvement in the champions’ play. Kelechi Iheanacho looks like he is enjoying playing for a team who create so many chances. He remains short of match practice, which will hopefully sharpen him and covert near misses into goals.
Marcelo Saracchi played his best game so far for Celtic, largely inverting into the old Greg Taylor role. This worked to an extent but left Sebastian Tounekti isolated, without the overlapping foil he has used to such good effect in his previous appearances. Hibs defenders knew to expect him to cut inside and were able to blunt him accordingly.
The right side of attack did not work throughout the game. Anthony Ralston returned from injury behind Daizen Meade. Anthony also played inside yet frequently, looked up to find no one on the wing, as Daizen had drifted into the middle. James Forrest did not improve things when he came on. Neither wings worked well.
Benjamin Nygren was one of several players rested ahead of Thursday’s Europa League game. His appearance on 67 minutes added drive to Celtic in the middle of the park, which until then lacked directness. Running at defenders is a low-probability play, but it disrupts opponents who are settled into a solid block.
Fair play to Hibs for coming to Celtic Park and playing out from the back throughout. They are not a great side and relied on free kicks to get into Celtic’s final third, but you can see what David Gray is building.
148 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- »
During the year we have also made progress with our digital strategy, as we look to enhance engagement and communication with our supporters. The implementation of our digital strategy will lead to improved touch points with our supporters, including the launch of a new Club App, digital ticketing options and the re-development of Celtic TV. We understand that our global supporter base wishes to engage with Celtic in this way and we aim to provide them with the opportunity to benefit from a more seamless experience.
—
can we get Rab McGlinchey on here to interpret?
i know they have to come out with these things but that is just authentic frontier gibberish.
CelticMac
It’s used for many things in regards match analysis and match preparation.
We’ll be using it to analyse the Hibs game amongst other things. A 0-0 draw with Hibs off the back of an XG of 3 will not be a cause for concern for BR or his coaches today. A 0-0 draw with an XG of 0.5 would have had them all in the video analysis room today.
It’ll be used to help us set up against opposition based on the opponent XG map.
It’ll be used for many things I’m sure.
What kick started this was whether it was a useful metric.
Given every professional club on the planet uses it, I would suggest the great MoN is some way off in his “total nonsense” remark.
A wee reminder what a scorer does
https://x.com/CollowWillie/status/1972263074838290848?t=rs0CDk5upEkbS0AXzvDPfQ&s=08
If only eh
HH
“Your not under arrest, but you are not free to leave.”
https://www.youtube.com/live/hKXZFDTcTYY?si=1c9GzCaZgAicmgit
Oh dear.
bigrailroadblues on 29th September 2025 3:22 pm
Prestonpans
Nae luck J. I’m off to Stirling tomorrow. Probably be pishing doon
You’ll never get wet inside a pub 👍🍻🍺
An Tearmann you are acting like the blog policeman…
You keep the Kev thing going even though it changes absolutely nothing…it certainly keeps Kev posting because he knows you will take the bait as always…
An Tearmann on 29th September 2025 4:30 pm
A wee reminder what a scorer does
————
https://hakanronnblad.com/2014/11/28/i-have-a-cousin/
And of course AT will be on to tell me I never call out Kev’s racism. The thing is, I ignore it. It doesn’t affect me.
Weebobbycollins on 29th September 2025 4:43 pm
And of course AT will be on to tell me I never call out Kev’s racism. The thing is, I ignore it. It doesn’t affect me.
______
Could you provide a link to this racism that you speak of?
Thanks.
The Battered Bunnet – good point re. putting the ball in the corner. Just to reinforce your point, over the last 3-4 games we have had many clear goal scoring opportunities and the shot has gone straight to where the goalkeeper is standing.
Kevjungle…I’m sure AT will provide an answer to your request.
I’m oot…
Weebobbycollins on 29th September 2025 5:13 pm
Kevjungle…I’m sure AT will provide an answer to your request.
I’m oot…
________
Yeah been waiting a while for that.
I’m oot as well.
AT & GP
Have either of you seen the documentary “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM”?
If not it’s worth a watch…
An Dun
Nice to agree with you about something.
The game has indeed passed MON by. He did great things for us, at great expense, when needed. Sadly not the really great
things he could have, as he blew 2 leagues. I will always appreciate what he did though.
Moisey
Completely agree. I can’t believe the manager never mentioned it post game. To give him credit maybe he felt it would be sounding like sour grapes because we did not win.
It needs called out and made an issue before it happens again.
Kevracist.and his 100+ racist monikers..
Tis funny you implying you have one moniker,name soz kevra
You looking for links to your racism kevvi
I could get your spew bout brown/black people,but I wont
Ask yourself why P67 called it easily the most racist poster seen on here,I am not goin to post any racism from 418/9,that was your moniker at the time.you still pretending your not related to yon kagleri invasion nonsense.your funny but still racist scum.
Why would Paul do that? He is not lying.
Gene,senior poster seen your hideous post.
You keep your racism anonymous,its what shite bags like you do.so back under your stone
HH
31003 on 29th September 2025 5:24 pm
To be honest, never heard of it.
I will make a point of checking it out.
Thanks.
BELMONTBRIAN Congratulations on having wee Juno Rose in your whanau. Yer a lucky man, my three girls are still enjoying travelling and not yet ready to make us grandparents. Enjoy that special time. Hail Hail.
If we are playing against teams who park the bus why don’t we change to 3-5-2 and get more hoops in the box and or shooting from distance looking for the deflected goal or in the box opportunity. Recycling the ball around the edge tires our players and lets them set in to a pattern. If teams know how to nullify us time to switch our play?
Weebobbycollins on 29th September 2025 4:35 pm
An Tearmann you are acting like the blog policeman…
You keep the Kev thing going even though it changes absolutely nothing…it certainly keeps Kev posting because he knows you will take the bait as always…
WBC nothing like blog policeman that has been countered in answer to Gp.
It’s nowt to do with baiting WBC,I just highlight the cretins racism,never bore or tired of that,
You choose to ignore kevracists racism as you wish WBC,I am not
===============
Weebobbycollins on 29th September 2025 4:43 pm
And of course AT will be on to tell me I never call out Kev’s racism. The thing is, I ignore it. It doesn’t affect me.
That’s your bag wbc,saddened a bit letting any sliver of racism pass you,its not my way.
Wbc I wouldnt dream of telliin you who or what to post,I am not going to start suggesting how you deal with kevs racism,you choose to ignore alas its still there.
Is it easier to have a giggle at my reaction,”taking bait? Then ignore its sleekit racism,whatever your comfy with wbc,am not,especially as it uses over 100 monikers.
Peace
HH
31003 5.24
Like GP I will check it out 👍
Thanks
HH
TAURANGABHOY
What a lovely word is ‘whanau’ meaning extended family.
I will definitely use that phrase.
HH
xG is a bit of fun isnt it? Maybe of use for predicting a score line but it’s such a basic metric that I can’t see anyone using it for tactical planning. They make a lot of goal scoring chances and concede not very many is hardly news to any decent scouting team.
It’s good for really interesting stat driven conversation: did you know that we had a better xG difference (xG – xGA) to the Huns in 2020/2021 and lost the league by 25 points, despite having Eddie as our striker. Or that last season our xG was the second lowest since theyve been doing this but our actual goals were nearly a goal a game better despite losing our fist choice striker halfway through the season? Or that Brendan’s third season in his first go at Celtic was comfortably our worst xG season?
What seems to matter most in terms of success in the league is how much better your actual goals are than your xG. As you’d expect most teams dont exceed or fall far below their xG (or the data wouldnt make sense, it’s normally a shoot out between us and the Huns with the team with the best xG/actual goals ratio.
So the team thats better at scoring goals from a roughly similar number of chances wins the league. Mind blowing stuff
So far this season Hearts xG vs actual is .65, while ours is -.59. If they keep it up that high they have a serious chance of winning the league but they won’t.
Interesting interview with Martin O’Neill on tv at the weekend and his achievements as a player and manager in the game which includes two 2 European Cup medals now renamed ECL. and coming up through the ranks in team management. He named Neil Lennon as the most influential player he signed coming from Crewe to Leicester and Celtic. a player with great drive and a motivator.
My simplistic take on fouls:
For most of the game in the spfl the opposition players engage ours in the defensive final third. A foul there gives a free kick that carries considerable risk so they try not to commit them. The referee knows that a free kick near the penalty area could change the game, they carry a higher risk tariff – get it wrong abd it’s more likely to lead to a goal and him getting it in the neck. More likely to be contentious.
We also play a game thats based on passing round and through teams, crossing finding spaces, we don’t normally run at the opposition. Very few midfield 50/50s
We play a high press, most of the fouls we commit are trying to nick the ball in their half or stopping breakaways. Easy fouls to give, often clear fouls in areas that are safe to give them. Teams run at us more than we run at them when a lot of fouls are committed, they also play long balls more than us, lots more 50/50s and wrestling between strikers and center backs
I don’t think it matters much but if it does we should start committing more players into fouling us and be a bit smarter when we’re defending, no matter where it is on the pitch as players will carry on falling over when they step in front of our and refs will carry on doing it
Last seasons xG vs actual goals stats throw up the same question thats been bugging me since the end of the window – why did we sell Adam Idah?
Celtic40
It’s a fair question.
Anyone here may have their favourite individual to blame. What does seem apparent to me, is we have no joined up player trading model.
Some parts seem ultra efficient with others a bit haphazard and amateur.
As the statement after accounts stated, strategy, execution and timing all need to improve.
Well I’m standing next to a mountain, I chop it down with the edge of my hand.
GlenDalysTonsils / The Battered Bunnet / Deniabhoy re putting your laces through the ball
Cheers all.
GDT – still with you but good stuff from TBB
TBB – I’d happily settle for side footers …. if they went either side of lumps of Centre Backs and into the corners of the net !
DB – recent case in point versus Red Star.
Tierney’s cut back was perfect.
In the modern game with its “tight margins” and “all coming down to moments” …
… That was as good as it gets.
15 yards out … just right of centre… coming to the guy from the left on his strong side … rolling along the deck with just enough pace .
I watched Nygren slow down his approach, stabilise his body, address the ball with the inside of his left foot …. going for control over power.
… and fully expected him to score into the top corner.
He hit the ball straight at the keeper !
He hit the ball straight at the keeper !
We always seem to shoot straight at the keeper
Belated congratulations BB, been rather busy there, just finished Dan Browns new book, all 671 pages. Anyway you’ll never believe the joy you will have with your grand daughter, I have 2 and 5 grandsons and they are a treausure. I always recall one Saturday morning listening to Frank Skerrit on the radio saying that the reason grandparents and grandweans get on so well as the both have the same “enemy” lol.
back to basics
No xG analysis will help me understand how Nygren did not score against Red Star.
Not in the way your analysis did. If he hits the ball to the left of the keeper, he scores. He didn’t
And if any top manager at any level would use xG to analyse that miss ex post facto then they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ergo the wrong job. It would be a complete waste of time and effort. And as Martin O’Neill described it, a total nonsense. Of course there are some on here who seem to believe they know more about football than Martin O’Neill past or present, well have I got news for them….they dont.
On the Foul debate on Saturday, there were several free kicks where Celtic were waived on as we dont stop and advantage is played. Hibs players hit the ground therefore no advantage can be played
Bowie continually fouled Scales by crashing into him before the ball arrived and not once was a foul given. Of Course when he got away with it, he continued to foul. Hibs were also wasting time and referee knew it. He even spoke to their Captain, wasting more time. The real error was not adding sufficient time on. 4 minutes was not enough to cover the cheating
Bigbhoy
100% agree.
Bowie was ‘at it’ from the first minute.
The ref was really poor.
From the James Forrest blog:
“Alan (Morrison)also analysed the time the ball was actually in play at the weekend and compared it to Hibs’ minutes on the ball. His conclusion – that Hibs had possession for a grand total of 14 minutes – was remarkable because in that time Celtic allegedly committed 16 fouls. That stat reveals the absolute absurdity of the situation.
PB – yip.
With Celtic having 3.5 times the possession Hibs had … statistically Celtic committed fouls 56 times more often (16 x 3.5) than Hibs.
Not an exact science as it assumes fouls are not committed when in possession (a rarity but not zero occurrence) but otherwise sound enough.
56 times more likely?
I think a ‘statistical improbability’ is what they call this?
prestonpans bhoys
I am not even sure if “anti-football” would cover that.
Thing is we know Hibs do not play like that all of the time,
then again they dont get refereed like that all of the time either
Needs to get raised with Willie Collum, it’s not just bad decisions that are the problem, it is bad decision making.
Again it’s down to Celtic Exec to bring this to SFA/Refs not the manager.
Watch the game, do the stats and present it – it’s irrefutable now what are you going to do about it?
The club and football public are being knowingly cheated.
bigbhoy on 29th September 2025 9:05 pm
Adding on time ‘benefits’ both teams rather than just the one that is trying to play. Referees need to apply the rules and if we have players being cautioned/sent off for time wasting in big numbers, then so be it. It may take a few weeks but as soon as players start to see their actions being rightly sanctioned, it will soon stop.
Football, if allowed to continue with time wasting, diving and technical fouling, will turn folk away in their droves.